1. Field of the Invention
The apparatus of the present invention relates to recovery of debris in bodies of water. More particularly, the present invention relates to a reinforced net, pulled by a vessel, constructed to recover debris at the bottom of a body of water, into a forward portion of the net and to capture the recovered debris in a rear bag in the net until retrieved.
2. General Background
In the oil and gas industry, drilling rigs are quite numerous within bodies of water such as the Gulf of Mexico. Following the drilling of a well and after the well has been closed, following either production at the site, or shutting down the drilling operation, the site must be left clean. In fact, there are very stringent governmental regulations which require that when a drilling site is abandoned, the drill head must be sealed a certain distance below the bottom of the body of water, and that any material which may have fallen from the rig, or may have been left at the bottom of the body of water, must be recovered. In order to assure that it has, the lessee/owner contracts the trawling to sweep a well site with a net, and if the net snags on any object below the surface, at the well site, the site is declared to be unclean, and the oil or drilling company is severely penalized and MMS will not approve the abandoned site until all debris has been removed.
In the present state of the art, oil companies are spending a considerable amount of money at abandoned well sites attempting to recover debris around the site. The most common method of recovery is to send divers down below the surface to survey the amount of debris, and attempt to bring the debris to the surface vessel for recovery. This method is very expensive, time-consuming, and may be dangerous to divers. Therefore, it is necessary that an improved method of recovering materials from an abandoned well site be developed.